A rapid route to the development of composite passive fire protection systems for steel structures

This paper describes the use of a small-scale propane burner test to characterise composite fire protection systems based, in the present case, on E-glass reinforcement and polyester resin. The burner test was used to produce conditions approaching those in a severe hydrocarbon fire. The heat transferred through the protection system was measured by heat transfer into a metal block, which thus simulated a metallic substrate. The candidate protection system was found to perform well up to hot face temperatures exceeding 1 ooo·c. It was found that, despite resin decomposition, the laminate heat transmission could be modelled by treating it as a 'simple', apparently non-decomposing material. This led to a simple set of 'design' equations that can be used for other fire protection laminates with a similar role.